John Kerry, at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that nominated him for president, made much of his "band of brothers" -- veterans who had served with him in Vietnam.
Tonight, as the Republican National Convention kicked fully into gear following its session that was abbreviated on Monday because of Hurricane Gustav, a small group of John McCain's military comrades were introduced (and loudly applauded) -- men who shared imprisonment and torture with him at the infamous Hanoi Hilton during the war in Vietnam.
McCain wasn't there; he arrives Wednesday in Minnesota's Twin Cities for the gathering that will officially make him the GOP's presidential nominee. Instead, introducing the POWs was one of their other fellow captives: Orson Swindle (who shared a cell with McCain).
Swindle's name may ring a distant bell for some -- in the 1992 presidential campaign, he served as a spokesman (as much as anyone could) for third-party candidate Ross Perot.
Here's a good one: Just because former Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia is the official candidate for president of the Libertarian Party, he thinks he should be included in this fall's televised presidential debates.
Can you imagine? A third party muscling in on the political duopoly of the Republicans and Democrats?
Shades of Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who was in a bunch of GOP primary debates last winter but was barred by Fox News from participating in its New Hampshire debate just before the voting there.
Even though Paul had garnered more votes and raised more money than some of the better-known Republicans who were included.
Paul, who was the Libertarian presidential candidate back in 1988, has given up on the Republican presidential nomination now. He is unopposed for reelection to the House, is out selling his no-longer-new book and is planning a counter-convention near the GOP gathering in St. Paul, Minn., in 12 days. Meanwhile, today he turns 73.
But now there's an absolutely outrageous public opinion poll out showing ...
The USC-UCLA rivalry usually gets played out in football and basketball games, but as our colleague Adam Rose points out on the "All Things Trojan" blog, USC has the upper hand in another quadrennial sport: the presidential campaign, as our co-blogger Adam Rose notes over at All Things Trojan.
USC can claim three links to the campaign, counting Cindy McCain, Bob Barr and Cynthia McKinney as alums on the trail. UCLA? Um, still looking ....
Of course, the links aren't really up there in bragging territory. John McCain once referred to USC by UCLA fans' favorite -- printable -- nickname for the home of the Trojans, the "University of Spoiled Children." And Barr, a former Republican, and McKinney are out on the political fringes, Barr running at the top of the Libertarian Party ticket and McKinney heading up the Green Party ticket.
Still, heading into the fall competition season along the 10 Freeway, this gives USC a 3-0 start.
Well, Rep. Ron Paul, our favorite 11-term sort-of Republican congressman running unopposed in November in a district near Houston, has released a major statement on his Rally for the Republic, which is designed to compete with the second day of the regular Republican National Convention in St. Paul next month.
""I consider this event equal to, if not more important, than anything I have done over all these years," Ron Paul said in a special unrehearsed videotape message to followers. (Click on the Read More line below.)
Loyal Ticket readers already know about the impressive fundraising success of the 72-year-old former ob-gyn, who's even older than the regular Republican nominee that Ron Paul won't endorse. Paul raised about $35 million this past year, way more than more famous guys like Mike Huckabee. Depending on whose count you use, each of Paul's convention delegates cost him more than $1 million.
He got more than one million Republican primary votes, despite persistent allegations of a mainstream media plot to ignore, play down and smother his campaign with such tricks as barring him from TV debates or minimizing his photo.
Paul got considerably fewer than a million convention delegates. More like 20. Or maybe 14. Which is one reason he decided to have his own convention, where he'll likely get them all.
But Paul did get the libertarian-like message out to many across the country and sold a lot of his new books and raised the awareness of how much alike he thinks the Republican and Democratic parties have become in their commitment to way-too-big government.
Paul and his energetic, committed followers believe they are laying the groundwork for a longterm revolution from within the not-so grand old GOP. Meanwhile, they hope to embarrass the GOP in St. Paul and cost it many votes on Nov. 4.
According to Dr. Paul (see video below), he's lined up quite a guest list of luminaries for....
We're talking about Bob Barr, who won -- if that's the word for for it -- the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination.
He's following in the renegade footsteps of Rep. Paul of Texas, the onetime Libertarian and now disaffected Republican congressman who ran such a successful fundraising campaign this political season, raising nearly $35 million
According to The Times' Dan Morain, our chief campaign finance guru, Barr, a former GOP congressman from Georgia, reported raising a lousy $196,400 last month to give him a grand campaign-long total of $384,864.
Last month he reported spending $180,770, pushing his total outlays to $312,483. Let's see, that leaves him $72,381 to carry him through to election day Nov. 4, unless he raises some more money.
Paul, who ran as a determined small-government, antiwar Republican and came up something around 1,000 delegates short of the nomination, reported ending July with only 649,625.70 in the bank. Last we heard he had several million left over from his unsuccessful presidential run.
But Paul has since transferred $10,000 to his nonprofit organization and a hefty $3.5 million of that money into his congressional campaign, which might seem unnecessary to some because he has no Democratic (or Libertarian) opponent in the November general election for his 11th House term.
In one sense, Barr may be taking a page from Paul. He ended the month with a tiny $1,000 in debt. Paul ended his campaign with zero debt, as the fiscal conservative has consistently done in every reporting month.
And, yes, we know Rep. Ron Paul isn't going to be anybody's nominee. But he could be.
We are sincerely indebted to loyal Ticket reader Travis for this morning's week-ending chuckle.
He found a website that lets you nominate anyone for president (insert name here) and incorporates their name in a most realistic TV news video report.
You can see how ridiculous the site is by watching this version -- before you start pranking family and friends. (It might take a minute or so to load if busy.)
And thanks again to Travis. If anybody else comes across good/fun/unusual political sites, just send them to The Ticket please. We might highlight yours.
This weekend, just a few minutes from where Barack Obama lives, a new challenger will emerge to his White House bid (as well as John McCain's).
The Green Party -- which with Ralph Nader as its standard-bearer played a major role in the 2000 election (and then, with little-known David Cobb as its candidate, had virtually no impact on the 2004 vote) -- opened its national convention today at the ornate Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago. On Saturday afternoon, it will choose its nominee for this year's presidential race (with the acceptance speech to follow).
The odds-on favorite to claim the nod is Cynthia McKinney, who represented a Georgia House district for five terms, surprisingly got knocked off in the 2002 primary, reclaimed the seat in 2004 and then lost the primary two years later -- in part because of the furor over a scuffle she had with a Capitol policeman.
If she triumphs in the delegate balloting over three rivals, McKinney would be the first black and the first woman picked for president by the Greens. That's not quite as impressive as what Obama is in line to achieve and what Hillary Clinton came close to -- the party, dedicated to environmentalism and nonviolence, only began running a national ticket in 1996 (with Nader heading it).
In his consequential 2000 showing, Nader won almost 2.9 million votes nationwide and -- Democrats forever will be convinced -- cost Al Gore the White House by siphoning enough support to keep him from carrying Florida and New Hampshire (carrying with one would have won Gore the presidency).
Cobb won all of 119,859 votes four years ago ... and did not affect the outcome in a single state.
Given that McKinney has a degree of national name recognition, she ought to be able to surpass Cobb's total vote. But as of now, it's hard to imagine she'll sway the outcome in a particular state.
A recent Newsweek poll, showing Barack Obama with a 15-percentage-point lead over John McCain, left many of the folks closely watching the presidential race scratching their heads.
With other polls showing a closer race, did the Newsweek survey accurately detect a somewhat delayed Obama "bounce" following the official end of Hillary Clinton's campaign? Or did the magazine get it wrong?
A just-completed L.A. Times/Bloomberg national poll may help clarify the confusion. We cannot reveal the precise figures quite yet; for the results, check LATimes.com about 5 p.m. EDT (2 p.m. PDT) today.
The survey not only asked registered voters their preferences in the head-to-head race between McCain and Obama but, in a second question, specifically included Ralph Nader and Bob Barr as choices to try to determine how their presidential candidacies might affect November's main event.
The poll also gauged voter attitudes toward Obama and McCain on a raft of issues and characteristics, including which has the right experience to be president and which has more honesty and integrity. And one of the poll's most dramatic findings concerned differing enthusiasm levels among their backers.
On this, the first anniversary of our Top of the Ticket blog, we are reminded of the mercurial, unpredictable nature of U.S. politics -- part of what makes what we do so fascinating.
Our goal -- one of us on the East Coast and the other on the far more important or at least less humid West Coast -- was to write about Campaign '08 virtually around the clock.
Our second-ever posting, 12 months ago today, previewed an upcoming L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll; later in the day, we detailed the results of the nationwide survey. The findings were in line with other polls of the time.
In the Republican presidential race, which then seemed the most likely to last deep into the primary season, Rudy Giuliani was perched in first place. His lead wasn't overwhelming, but it was strong enough that he appeared certain to remain a major contender.
His liberal record on social issues loomed as an obvious liability within his party, but his tough-on-terrorism message was attracting substantial support from moderates and GOP-leaning independents.
His major headache among rivals last June was an as-yet-undeclared candidate who was riding a wave as the great conservative hope -- Fred Thompson. He ran a strong second in the poll.
Lagging far behind were John McCain and Mitt Romney, each barely with double-digit support. In our preview posting, we were especially scornful of McCain, noting sarcastically (and foolishly, as it turned out) that in the poll, he found himself "in heated competition with the 'Don't Know' category."
Meriting no mention from us was Mike Huckabee, one of several back-of-the-pack candidates barely earning any support across the country.
The Democratic race, at that point, seemed so much more cut-and-dried.
Although the subject hasn't exactly been a hot political issue yet as we skim through the 16th month of the current presidential election contest, Ralph Naderis proposing that even more teenagers should be legally eligible to vote -- those who are 16 and 17.
A perennial presidential candidate recently, Nader is the oldest guy running for the White House. He's even older than that other one.
Nader is so old that when he was 16, this thing called television was just catching on. Diners Club was inventing the credit card. The average house cost $8,450, the average car $1,510 and the stuff to run it called gasoline cost 18 cents a gallon, which is about half today's per-gallon tax.
There was no known connection, but when Nader was 16, China invaded Tibet; wait a minute, didn't they just do that again?
When Nader was 16, President Truman sent U.S. troops to help the French fight Communists because it was important to defend a place soon to be known as Vietnam. And some unknown kid named ...
Now, it's former Rep. Bob Barr's turn. He's been chosen the 2008 presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party after numerous rounds of balloting that not many people care about.
The Libertarians, convening in Denver, named him Sunday.
"I'm sure we will emerge here with the strongest ticket in the history of the Libertarian Party," Barr said in his victory speech.
Which may not be saying much, because as determined as many of its followers are, there simply aren't enough of them to elect their ticket to anything.
The Libertarians have been good for only around 3% of the vote in recent elections. However, 3% in a close election between the Republican and Democratic tickets could make the difference.
Much as Ralph Nader drew enough votes from Al Gore in 2000 to help George W. Bush win the White House, the little-known Barr could draw enough votes of dissatisfied conservatives to hurt Sen. John McCain's chances as the GOP nominee.
"I want everybody to remember," Barr told conventioneers, "that we only have 163 days to win this election. We cannot waste one single day." Mark Silva has the full story here.
Virtually all the nation's political attention in recent weeks has focused on the compelling state-by-state presidential nomination struggle between two Democrats and the potential for party-splitting strife over there.
But in the meantime, quietly, largely under the radar of most people, the forces of Rep. Ron Paul have been organizing across the country to stage an embarrassing public revolt against Sen. John McCain when Republicans gather for their national convention in Minnesota at the beginning of September.
Paul's presidential candidacy has been correctly dismissed all along in terms of winning the nomination. He was even excluded as irrelevant by Fox News from a nationally-televised GOP debate in New Hampshire.
But what's been largely overlooked is Paul's candidacy as a reflection of a powerful lingering dissatisfaction with the Arizona senator among the party's most conservative conservatives. As anticipated in late March in The Ticket, that situation could be exacerbated by today's expected announcement from former Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia for the Libertarian Party's presidential nod, a slot held by Paul in 1988.
Never mind Ralph Nader, Republican and Democratic parties both face ...
How would you like to head up the public communications effort for a surefire losing presidential candidacy? You would know in advance from now through Nov. 4 that nothing you did or said would change the outcome for your candidate. You might get to travel a little. Wouldn't have to worry about getting a large salary.
And, who knows, you could play a key role in siphoning off enough angry Democratic votes to help elect another Republican president.
What's more your boss has never shown any reluctance to speak for himself.
Ralph Nader's latest presidential campaign is looking for two top media people. Experience necessary. It's posted an erudite and well-educated want ad on the Poynter.org website appealing to the idealism of potential job applicants.
It says the Nader "presidential campaign for a progressive, majoritarian redirection of our country is seeking experienced media persons to conduct outreach and receive press inquiries.
"You can bring your conscience to work daily, commit truth, and engage the great issues of our times.
"Writing and reportorial experience are needed, unless you are a sui generis talented and motivated dynamo in these tumultuous arenas of newspapers, magazines, radio, television and the blogs.
"Applications are invited, together with references, writing samples and other magnetic material that you believe commend you for these tasks.
"Savor the experience, make a consequential contribution to public dialogue, public education and the substantive quality of this presidential year, whose major party candidates are so besieged thus far with trivia and distractions."
Also the applicants should be prepared to answer the inevitable media question: whether Nader prefers boxers or briefs.
Fridays have many good qualities. Normal people with normal jobs get to look forward to two days off. Payday for a lot of folks. Happy hour. Remember, the phrase is NOT "Thank God It's Tuesday." But it's also the day that Joshua Levy over at techPresident posts his favorite YouTube videos of the week.
Which means you get to save a lot of surfing time during the week looking at political videos and let Levy do the heavy lifting for you. Our fave from today's list: Leave Ralph Nader Alone, (see below) which is fascinating in a "the metal-punk band just moved in next door" kind of way. And it also reminds us of this classic ad.
Another precinct heard from: Now it’s Ralph Nader who’s weighing in on the never-ending campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
While Nader himself is running again for president, he appears to see a kindred spirit in Hillary Clinton. The longtime activist -– who knows a thing or two about running for office when others wish he would withdraw –- is urging Clinton to stay in the race. For as long as she wishes.
Perhaps most interestingly, he’s doing it in the form, unusual in American political communication, of free verse.
You won't want to go to bed tonight without knowing this:
Mike Gravel, the former senator from Alaska whose campaign for the Democratic nomination for president in recent months was virtually invisible and free of any impact whatsoever, has packed up his political bags and taken them to the Libertarian Party.
According to the website Third Party Watch, which as you might expect watches third parties, Shane Cory, executive director of the Libertarian Party, confirmed tonight that Gravel was switching parties and that a formal announcement would be made within hours and immediately ignored by most Americans.
A statement elsewhere on the same website quoted Gravel as saying, "I'm joining the Libertarian Party because it is a party that combines a commitment to freedom and peace that can't be found in the two major parties that control the government and politics of America.
"My libertarian views, as well as my strong stance against the war, the military-industrial complex and American imperialism, seem not to be tolerated by Democratic Party elites who are out of touch with the average American."
Just 11 days ago Gravel announced his endorsement of Green Party candidate Jesse Johnson for president.
The campaigns of John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul and Barack Obama were obviously caught by surprise tonight and so stunned by the party-switch announcement that they issued no immediate responses.
The Third Party website also quoted another almost-forgotten politician, former Republican Rep. Bob Barr, who has joined the Libertarian Party virtually without notice as well, as welcoming Gravel and noting, "I too concluded Republicans had lost their core principles, and could no longer associate myself with the GOP."
Meanwhile, Gravel's old Democratic presidential campaign website still seemed to be accepting donations in case you feel like helping out. "My campaign," its homepage says, "has never needed you more than now."
(UPDATE: An update on reactions from around the political spectrum appears below.)
In 2004, campaigning as an independent, the longtime consumer activist got 465,650 votes (out of a total of more than 122 million). Four years before that, as the candidate of the Green Party, he was more successful, capturing 2.8 million of the 105 million votes cast. (He also ran a limited campaign as the Greens' candidate in 1996 and as a write-in candidate in 1992.)
His 2000 campaign earned him the ire of many Democrats, who...
First, Edwards. If he does follow through with the reported planned announcement in New Orleans later today, the timing is curious. Edwards' 2008 campaign never really caught on, in large part because he couldn't get enough air to breath in a room in which Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama sucked up nearly all the oxygen. And he was further confounded by Obama's policies, which occupied much of the same populist ground that Edwards was standing on.
But why drop out now? Edwards' last loss was Saturday in South Carolina. His showing in Florida on Tuesday was irrelevant. And with Feb. 5 just around the corner, he might have been able to grab enough delegates to act as a drag on both of the other candidates.
Unless the one-time trial lawyer is planning to throw his lot in with Obama in an effort to stop Clinton's march to the nomination. Or, conversely -- and harder to imagine -- join up with Clinton to seal it for the New York senator.
DETROIT -- Unity '08, which began last year as an attempt to bridge the left-right political divide and draft consensus candidates for an independent presidential campaign, has all but pulled the plug on itself. The reason: Key players have left, support flagged, Federal Election Commission regulations hobbled fundraising, access to state ballots proved difficult, and everybody, it seems, wants to heal the same divide.
"Barack Obama, for example, has made the theme of unity and the necessity of bridging the partisan divide an absolutely central theme of his campaign. And just last week, a group of former and present national office holders -- independents, Republicans and Democrats -- met in Oklahoma for the sole purpose of stating their belief that at the present perilous moment, a unity government is the only hope of solving the nation's mounting problems. When you find agreement between the likes of former RNC chairman Bill Brock and Gary Hart, you're onto something....
"Waiting in the wings, should the divide persist, is the potential of a serious non-partisan candidacy by Mike Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York (two of our founders, Doug Bailey and Gerald Rafshoon, have stepped down from the board and may have more to say about their plans in the near future)."
Bailey is a longtime Republican strategist and Rafshoon was President Jimmy Carter's White House comunications director, and it will be interesting to see whether they pop up as advisors to Bloomberg.
Speaking of party time, former and possibly future presidential candidate Ralph Nader rang in the new year by sending an angry e-mail to reporters. Isn't that what everyone does to start a new 12-month cycle?
Nader was blasting (Nader and blasting seem to go together, don't they?) Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton over her fundraising. Then, Nader said in a follow-up interview that he might run for president again in 2008.
Nader’s e-mail, co-signed by Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and former San Francisco supervisor Matt Gonzalez, says: "Do you really believe if we replace a bunch of corporate Republicans with a bunch of corporate Democrats that anything meaningful is going to change? This has to stop. It's that simple."
Reached on the phone later by The Times' Dan Morain, Nader lauded (Nader lauding?) JohnEdwards for his presidential campaign, saying the former senator is using the opportunity to talk tough about corporate abuses. But Nader also left open the possibility that he would run again himself, saying he would be making the decision in about a month. Possibly good New Year's news for beleaguered Republicans.
Nader angered many Democrats by mounting a Green Party candidacy in 2000, siphoning votes from Al Gore and helping to create the eight-year George W. Bush presidency.
“Hillary Clinton is an unacceptable candidate to large numbers of independents, Democrats and third party members,” the Nader e-mail said. “ … If Hillary Clinton prevails, millions of Americans will look elsewhere for change, or stay home.
You know the New Yorker who's mixed up in all that presidential talk?
Not the Democratic one who always cheered for the Cubs before she always cheered for the Yankees. And not the Republican one who always cheers for the Yankees unless they lose in the playoffs when he always cheers for any other American League team still playing.
No, not that pair. But the New Yorker who used to be both a Democrat and then a Republican, now calls himself an independent and has enough money to buy his own baseball league. Mike Bloomberg, the current mayor. He's the one who keeps saying he has no intention of running for president and then goes on to talk about what kind of president America needs and the terrible gridlock he sees in Washington but not in New York where he often takes the subway, which he could also buy his own of.
Let's be honest. The businessman loves to be seen toying with the idea of an independent run for the White House. He knows how to play the media: the more he denies interest, the more they ask him about it in case there's a nuanced change. It's their job to look for a story. And Mike is just playing and holding the spotlight while he does.
Still, an independent candidacy would save all the expense and hassle and talk of....
The new L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll, which you can peruse here, provides welcome news for Democrat Hillary Clinton and, to a lesser extent, Republican Rudy Giuliani. But a closer look at the results also identifies the hurdles that could keep either out of the White House.
Clinton is favored for her party's presidential nomination by almost half -- 48% -- of Democratic-leaning voters nationwide; as The Times' Peter Wallsten writes, that gives her a formidable lead in the contest. Her number is right on track with the average of her support -- 48.5% -- in several other recent national surveys, as aggregated on the RealClearPolitics Website. And trend lines could hardly be more favorable for her -- as Clinton's backing has grown, Barack Obama's has not, as we noted earlier. He came in this time with only 17%.
The poll also found Clinton doing significantly better in potential general election matchups with the top Republican presidential contenders, compared with the results in a Times/Bloomberg poll conducted in June. Back then, she lost each of these faceoffs; now, she's ahead.
Still, there's that little matter of her favorability rating.
When a sample that included Democrats, Republicans and independent voters was asked their impression of the New York senator and former first lady, she just barely ended up in positive territory: 48% said they had a favorable view of her, 44% unfavorable (a difference that falls inside the margin of error for this question -- 3 percentage points, plus or minus).
Most important, she did not score as well with independents, who loom ...
There must be something in the coffee on the set of "Law & Order."
As Fred Thompson prepares to leave his acting career behind for a presidential run, one of his castmates on NBC's long-running show, Sam Waterson, continues to carve out a public affairs niche of his own.
Waterson, who for years has played an assistant D.A. --- most recently working under Thompson's character --- on "Law and Order," has emerged as the chief spokesman for "Unity '08." That's the effort begun last year by several veteran politicos to cobble together a centrist alternative to the two major parties. Waterson has appeared on cable news shows to tout the cause and, in April, gave a speech about it at the National Press Building, just a few blocks away from the White House.
Sunday found him on CBS' "Face the Nation," part of a panel fielding questions from moderator Bob Schieffer that focused on the potential impact to the 2008 race if New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg launches an independent White House bid.
Waterson stayed on message, carefully avoiding an embrace of Bloomberg --- or any other possible third-party candidate --- while pressing the Unity '08 case. Its "basic inspiration," he said, "is the fact that the system itself for choosing our leaders is broken, and everybody knows it."
The process, he argued, pushes candidates to the extremes of the two major parties. And that, he said, creates an opportunity for Bloomberg or others who would cater their pitch to the middle.
Not to be outdone by the buzz surrounding Michael Bloomberg's intentions, Ralph Nader is toying with a presidential run.
Yes, again. And yes, we've gone down this road so often that we'll simply link you to Nader's interview with the Politico's Roger Simon.
The famed consumer advocate does have some sharp words for Hillary Clinton worth noting; he calls her a "political coward." And there's an intriguing tidbit featuring Al Gore.
That's the scenario envisioned for California's governor by none other than billionaire Warren Buffett in the kicker to a new, and long, Time magazine article on the political world's latest fun couple --- Arnold Schwarzenegger and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. (The story's headline: "The New Action Heroes.")
Referring to the won't-die chatter about Bloomberg running for president as an independent, Buffett says that as he mused about that scenario, he consulted the Constitution. "I wanted to see if Schwarzenegger could be his Vice President," the businessman tells Time. "I think he could," given that the born-an-American-citizen requirement for the top of the ticket is not mentioned for the occupant of the No. 2 slot.
Says Buffett: "That would be one hell of a team, wouldn't it?"
The Time piece refers to the pair as "the Hollywood brute and the Wall Street mogul." And, in light of Bloomberg's diminutive stature, it makes the obvious reference to the film "Twins" (the mayor in the Danny DeVito role and Arnold in, well, the Arnold role).
The piece provides mini-bios of the two men. And it will be music to the ears of their PR staffs. "They're ... doing big things," it asserts. "Specifically, they're doing big things that Washington has failed to do."
-- Don Frederick
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Don Frederick has served as an editor helping guide coverage of every presidential election since 1984. He is a third-generation Washingtonian, so watching the political world comes naturally to him.
A graduate of Northwestern University, he was a reporter for newspapers in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas before joining the (now-defunct) Los Angeles Herald Examiner in 1983. Hired by The Times in 1989, he has worked in its Washington bureau since 1996 — a perch providing him a close-up view of the impeachment of President Clinton, the government's response to 9/11 and the day-to-day wrangling of the two major parties.
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000.
A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
part because he couldn't get enough air to breath in a room in which Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama sucked up nearly all the oxygen. And he was further confounded by Obama's policies, which occupied much of the same populist ground that Edwards was standing on. 
Waterson, who for years has played an assistant D.A. --- most recently working under Thompson's character --- on "Law and Order," has emerged as the chief spokesman for "Unity '08." That's the effort begun last year by several veteran politicos to cobble together a centrist alternative to the two major parties. Waterson has appeared on cable news shows to tout the cause and, in April, gave a speech about it at the National Press Building, just a few blocks away from the White House.
Not to be outdone by the buzz surrounding Michael Bloomberg's intentions, Ralph Nader is toying with a presidential run.
A graduate of Northwestern University, he was a reporter for newspapers in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas before joining the (now-defunct) Los Angeles Herald Examiner in 1983. Hired by The Times in 1989, he has worked in its Washington bureau since 1996 — a perch providing him a close-up view of the impeachment of President Clinton, the government's response to 9/11 and the day-to-day wrangling of the two major parties.
A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
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